Recent advances in image and video sensing have intensified user expectations for the visual quality of captured images and videos. Specifically, users demand capturing images with increased zoom levels and with higher resolution. In addition, forensic experts for industrial and biomedical applications require zooming of images and videos for capturing finer details. Images and videos are generally captured by means of cameras having a moveable optical lens or by means of fixed lens mobile devices. Generally, a camera having an optical lens enables rotating the optical lens for facilitating a zoom-in/zoom-out function. Optical lens rotated in the zoom-in position enables capturing a zoomed image or video. Professional cameras such as digital SLR cameras may enable using a plurality of lens that may be attached to the camera depending on the need of a user. Image formation by an optical lens is based on the focal length (f) of the camera lens, image distance (i), and the distance (D) between the object to be captured and the camera lens, the relationship is described by the equation
      1    f    =            1      D        +                  1        i            .      The focal length (f) is the distance between the camera lens and the point where the rays become coincident. The image distance (i) is the distance between the lens and the image formed without any losses. Therefore, as the object gets nearer to the lens, the image is reconstructed with lesser losses, since the refracted and reflected rays are coincident at defined focal length. Similarly, if the object is at a far distance from the lens and focal length as well as image distance is kept constant then the image is blurred. Therefore, for obtaining an image with minimum loss, specifically for objects placed farther away from the lens, the focal length (f) as well as the image distance (l) is required to be changed i.e. the lens itself is required to be changed leading to higher costs. Though the optical lens increases the performance of a camera with magnifying particular region, but the size and cost of the lens increases for larger optical zoom such as 6×, 8× and so on.
In case of mobile devices such as mobile phones, the manufacturers are constantly trying to reduce the size of the mobile phones, making it necessary to reduce the size of the camera while adding more imaging features. Hence, mechanical zoom methods as provided in digital SLR cameras are not efficient for mobile phones. Each year, mobile phone manufacturers add more imaging features to their handsets, causing these mobile imaging devices to converge towards feature sets and image quality that customers expect from standalone digital still cameras. Mobile phones usually provide zoomed versions of images by using software interpolation methods referred to as digital zoom. Digital zoom employs over-sampling the image and cropping and interpolating it in accordance with a desired zoom factor. However, digital zoom leads to blurring and inaccurate zoomed image due to the presence of ambiguous information about the captured objects.
Hence, there exists a need for providing methods and apparatuses that can provide zoomed images without the inclusion of bulky and expensive optical lens and at the same time providing better zoomed image quality with high resolution.